


Not Always for Him

by lodessa



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-05
Updated: 2009-08-05
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time travel provides for complicated relationships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Always for Him

**Author's Note:**

  * For [indiefic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiefic/gifts).



**Derek Reese**

 

The first time that Derek sees Savannah Weaver, she's talking to John Connor. Her brilliant red hair stands out against the muted grays of their post-apocalyptic sewer empire. She turns, their eyes meet for a moment, and he could swear that her face becomes more ashen. Derek goes on about his business and he doesn't see her again for a while, but she's lodged in his mind. He doesn't know her name or anything about her, but he makes it up in his head. Allison accuses him of having a starry eyed look to him, when she catches him staring off into nothingness. Derek thinks she would do better to notice the way that both Connor and his brother Kyle look at her, but he doesn't say anything. Maybe it's better that nothing happens, division between any two members of the resistance could get them all killed. Besides, she'd pick Connor. People are like that, they go for the most powerful person they can get their hands on. 

The second time, they actually speak. Derek gets word that Connor wants him and when he finds him she's there. Connor introduces them, which is unusual for his growing paranoia. Savannah doesn't smile, but she looks at him so hard he thinks it will leave marks on his face. She clasps his hand firmly, like a man, but he sees how small and white her hands are. She leaves and he stares after her.

“She wanted to know who you were.” Connor tells him when she's out of earshot, “I'm pretty sure she thinks you're hot.”

Derek watches her walk out of sight with a stunned smile on his face.

Kyle and Allison are nowhere to be found, so Derek has a little while to himself for fantasy. He hardly notices when they come back, smiling and guilty.

The third time they are alone. Derek thinks that Connor sent him intentionally, and he blesses him for it. There's one night of waiting and Savannah cuts the small talk short when she straddles his lap and kisses him hard, body pressing against him. 

Savannah isn't like the rest of the people Derek knows. The tunnels and being hunted down like animals don't seem to have changed her so much. She remains a princess out on adventure, hiding her identity poorly. She isn't dispossessed. She tells Derek about her childhood, about her mother the high powered executive and her father's death and someone named John Henry. Her stories don't have the wistful feel of everyone else's though. She seems motivated but secure. It's like she feels safe. 

No one is ever safe.

Allison and Kyle seem to spend a lot more time alone these days. Derek doesn't mind because he's fallen for Savannah completely. Suddenly the grey skies seem less oppressive, the metal farther off. He never sees the fall coming.

Prisoners. Derek never knows how Savannah gets them out. At the time she seems unafraid, demanding to speak with someone capable of making decisions. And they listen. When she comes back and suddenly they are released, Derek is more confused than he ever thought possible. What is she?

Afterwards, as far out of reach of the metal as possible, she cries. Gulping gasps of despair and she doesn't tell him why. They make love for the last time, and he lies awake while she falls asleep, listening to her panicked sleep mumbling. She tells someone she's sorry, over and over again. Derek realizes that he doesn't really know her, not at all. He wishes he did. When they part the following day, she says goodbye. They never say goodbye, resistance soldiers think it is too permanent. Her face is that of someone about to face execution. She will never see him again, and he thinks he will never see her.

Then he returns home to find Kyle is gone. Connor won't tell him why, but seems even more crazed and paranoid than usual. He doesn't even look at Allison anymore. Derek would be worried about him; if he wasn't mad about not knowing what's become of his brother. He would realize the two things might be related, if he wasn't heartbroken and confused about Savannah. He finds her long red hair on his clothes still, but it's increasingly rare, like the fur of the family golden retriever was after Judgement Day.

When Allison starts sleeping with Connor, he knows they are both truly gone. That's when he volunteers to try and find any survivors of that damned virus.

He doesn't know that he will not die of it. He doesn't know he will love and lose again. He doesn't know that in the end he will die for a small redhead child, who is not yet the woman he has loved.

 

**Allison Young**

 

The first time Allison sees Derek staring at the redheaded informant, she feels a little stab of jealousy. She covers it up by making fun of him, her voice light and harsh. Kyle asks her if she wants to go scouting for supplies, and she says yes just to gain some time to cool off. She knows she is being unfair. Derek and her are comrades in arms and he's never given her reason to hope, but she has anyway. She thought maybe he was just hard to read and slow to act. Kyle listens to her talk about nothing at all, doesn't comment on how often she says his brother's name. 

Kyle is the gentlest of them all. He doesn't carry his battle scars like awards, doesn't think harsh words will protect him. The second time, when Derek and the invader are down talking to Connor, she lets it all come out, relaxing for the first time in years. Kyle tells her he knows how she feels and suddenly Allison sees at last what he is saying. He's been telling her for ages, but she hasn't been listening. He is in love with her. Kyle Reese, daring but constant. He's nothing like his brother. Derek is all rough edges and easy shut downs. He'd never listen to her go on and on. Kyle listens, day in and out, in this hell they live in. He listens like her stupid crush is just as important as the fate of mankind, the survival they are all working for.

No hope is impossible. She grows to care for him in her way. 

But then one day he is gone. There was no warning. She hears Derek and John fighting, hears the despair in Derek's voice. She tries to talk to him, tries to commiserate over common losses, but he turns away. He's a shadow of himself, wrapped up in loss. She doesn't see Weaver around again. 

She doesn't really know why she goes to John afterwards. She certainly doesn't expect him to tell her. He's become more frantic of late, afraid and tense. He sees metal in every shadow. She doesn't see it coming when he kisses her. Preoccupied with the Reese brothers, John has been sort of forgotten. Funny how easy it is for perspectives to shift. She lets him though, lets him hold her to him. He needs her. The resistance needs her. 

She bides her time before asking. Months and months go on. She tries little things first, testing the water. Sometimes he snaps at the slightest thing, and sometimes he spills over with secrets. She learns how to judge his mood, what tactics to apply. 

When she finally finds out, Allison finds a dark space to cry alone. The tears are relief, relief that Kyle won't be coming back to find her with John. They are also grief that she will never see him again. He will never know, never misunderstand. There's victory in there too, the truth about John Connor's parentage is closely guarded but he told her.

When she's captured, they want all her secrets. She tells them many, breaking little by little. She even tells them about Sarah Connor, but she will never tell them about Kyle Reese. She owes him that much.

 

**John Connor**

 

Savannah Weaver comes to him when she is grown. She looks more like metal than the scared little girl he taught to tie her laces. She has a proposition for him. She explains that the T-1000s want to break off from Skynet. She explains that they will listen to her. He looks at her and wonders once again whether everyone has it wrong. She seems to have accomplished a lot more than he has. So why is he the supposed savior of mankind?

She isn't metal though, she's grown up into a lovely woman, and he sees her watching Derek. He wonders whether she remembers, Derek's dead face and the conversation they had about it. 

Allison notices. She even says something about Derek mooning over the other woman. Her voice colder than usual, more like Cameron than herself. Deadly. John's been making progress in separating the two in his head, but moments like this it jumbles together and he aches. He wants her, but really he wants something that isn't there and wasn't real.

The next time Savannah asks. 

“Derek Reese.” He tells her, pausing to see if she is going to mention the past. She doesn't say anything though, so he adds, “Do you want to meet him?”

She does, so he sends someone off to collect Derek while he finishes up business with Savannah. Derek arrives, knowing so much less than either of them. John feels strange introducing them. There's a dramatic irony to the way that Derek is staring at Savannah. John feels like an intruder in his own war room as they stare at each other. He wants to warn Derek, but of what? Instead he finds himself thinking about Allison's face, the way if can sometimes be so cold, the way she always has time for Derek but not always for him.

“She wanted to know who you were.” John tells Derek instead, “I'm pretty sure she thinks you're hot.”

He can't help wondering if Derek always fell for Savannah or if this is something new. Will it effect things between his uncle and the woman who killed his first real girlfriend to try and manipulate him? Will it somehow help or defeat Skynet indirectly? Time travel can give you a real headache.

This thing with Savannah could blow the whole issue wide open though. Maybe it can even put an end to this war that keeps coming back. So if she wants to screw his uncle before he goes back in time to die protecting her, that's really her prerogative. 

Then things take an some unexpected turns. Allison is suddenly spending all of her time with Kyle Reese, looking at him differently. John makes up speeches in his head about time travel and things that shouldn't be changed, but really he just feels like both of them are his to a certain extent. He feels left out. Then Derek and Savannah go and get themselves kidnapped and he worries that they've really messed up the future past now. Also he worries about the alliance with the T-1000s, without her it is uncertain at best. All the expectations that he's been building go up in smoke.

He needs to salvage something. So he does the only thing he knows he's always done. He tears Kyle Reese away from the woman he's been waiting for and sends him into the past to protect his mother and become the father he will never know until after he's an adult once more. He knows it is petty and selfish, but it is at least familiar. 

Then Derek comes back alone, nursing a broken heart, to discover that his brother has vanished. All John can get out of Derek is that Savannah convinced Skynet to release them and then left him, with no intention of ever seeing him again. He can't get ahold of her and from day to day vacillates between thinking she was a spy and thinking she is a martyr. Derek won't talk to him. He's still mad that John won't tell him where his brother has gone. John can barely meet anyone's eyes. 

It's the worst with Allison.

He seems to be backsliding from all the progress he thought he'd made in remembering that she is her own person. He dreams about Cameron and wakes and cannot stop looking at Allison like prey, like possession. So when she comes to talk to him voluntarily, he doesn't think for once. Maybe his brain has overheated but he just reaches out, takes what he wants. 

She doesn't fight him.

So that is how he starts sleeping with Allison. He pretends that she is Cameron without meaning to sometimes. Others he is overcome with guilt about what may or may not happen in the future. The day she doesn't come back is almost a relief. The waiting is almost over.

When Cameron comes he knows it is not Allison. 

Her programming has to be perfect. He needs her to be right. She's the only one he can talk to anymore. It's happening all over again. He talks to the metal, he sleeps with the metal, he loves the metal. Savior of the human race, he thinks he's more of a race traitor.

She's the one who comes up with a solution to the missing link to Savannah's T-1000s. She's the one who sends the message.

Will you join us?”

In the end he is just glad that she has.

 

**Savannah Weaver**

 

Savannah tells herself that she seeks out John Connor for the human race. 

For some reason, machines like her. It probably has something to do with her mother, not her first mother, the second one. The one who wasn't human; the one who was a terminator herself. She's never asked. Instead she tries to understand, to figure out why they to what they do more generally. This is how she meets them, the rest of the T-1000s. They talk to her. They don't want to be Terminators; they want to be more than that. Will she help them? 

So it makes sense to talk to John Connor. Connor who understands them more like she does. Connor who knows how to change them, fix them. Connor, who the people trust. He will want to hear about this. Luckily she's met him before, so he will probably see her without too many questions. Though, she's heard he's become increasingly paranoid. 

She doesn't list seeing him as one of her reasons. She doesn't even know his name, only his dead face. She knows he was close to Connor though. He will be around.

She isn't prepared to see him again, not really. He seemed so old the first time she saw him, but of course now he is barely older than she is. Their eyes meet and she feels a jumble of conflicting emotions: guilt, anxiety, and longing. She wants him. It's not quite love at first site but it's as close as you'd expect in this hellhole. She doesn't know what to make of it. It's sudden and somehow elicit and she'd distracted all the way through her meeting with Connor.

Connor is every bit as excited as she thought he'd be. So she's back meeting with him in no time. She's been thinking about that man the whole time and while she's there she can't stop looking in his direction. Connor notices. So she asks who he is and hopes he attributes it to what happened all those years ago. He doesn't comment on the past though, instead asking her if she wants to meet Derek; that's his name: Derek Reese. 

She does.

He looks at her like he already knows something is going to happen, or at least like he wants it too. The guilt comes swelling back up. It isn't fair that she knows how he's going to die, when they've just met like this. She wishes she knew what was going to happen between now and then instead. She excuses herself, trying to pretend she's hesitating, but she knows that she won't be able to resist.

She's surprised that Connor helps her out with this. He sends Derek to meet her in the middle of nowhere, gives her and opportunity to seduce the man who will later die for her child self. He knows and he doesn't object. She doesn't know what to make of it, but she knows that she wants this. He wants her too, she can tell, so it's easier not to ask questions and just to wrap herself around him and get lost in the moment.

The next few months go by like that, like walking through a fog of warm skin and hot nights. They talk about things; she tells him about her childhood, talks to him more than she's ever talked to anyone but John Henry. Besides, the sex is really good. Savannah became a woman after J Day and partners have been erratic and rushed. She's never made love before, but she thinks that's what this is. 

That's probably why they get caught off guard and end up in a Skynet prison. It's easy enough to get out of these places, if you are Savannah Weaver, beloved of the liquid metal, but getting him out is harder. She has to make promises she never thought she would. She thought she'd die first. She can't leave him though. She owes him that much. Part of it's what they have shared together, but part of it is that first time she saw him. The time he took a bullet for her and was dead. He didn't even know her then.

She knows that she's put a target on her head, that the betrayal will never be accepted by either of the groups she's been working with. She knows she is a dead woman.

It only seems fair.

She wants to tell him the truth. She wants to tell him about the first time she saw him, about his future, about how much he means to her. Instead, she gives him what she's always given him, takes what she always takes. She sleeps fitfully. In the morning, she lacks the same courage. The best she can manage is not to cry. She says goodbye and hopes he will know what it means.

The T-1000s make it quick. That's their only brand of mercy.


End file.
